February can be a dull month. Christmas is long gone; New Year’s excitement has faded, and so has the determination of fulfilling your New Year’s Resolutions. For some who are in luck, Valentine’s Day may help lifting up spirits but to the rest of us singles, it is nothing but boring in the middle of winter quarter. It really is nothing but boring except when you are a fashion addict and February is the month of Fashion Week.
Fashion Week has always been exciting and I can positively say that Fall 2011 Fashion Week may be a tad more interesting than the previous ones. Reason? This year’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week (aka New York Fashion Week) has a record-breaking number of 33 designers, from Marc Jacobs to Vera Wang, streaming their runway shows live online.
Just a few years ago before fashion shows started going online, fashion shows were exclusive. You’d either have to be A) Rihanna B) Ivanka Trump C) Rachel Zoe D) Anna Wintour E) Buyers from Neiman Marcus/ Barneys/ any high-end retailers to get a front row seat to the live fashion shows. Last year this time, a pair of high schoolers from Vermont even hacked into the database of a fashion PR company and added themselves to the guest lists of several tight shows (that turned out to be an epic fail).
The fact that fashion shows are streaming live is indeed a dream come true for many. As Heidi Klum said in Project Runway, “In fashion, one day you’re in, the next day, you’re out.” Every second in fashion counts and to stay on top of your game, you have to be ahead of everyone else, or at least be on the same page. Not only can outsiders get a taste of the coveted Fashion Week experience with the help of online fashion shows, we can also enjoy the show synchronously with Anna Wintour.
For Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Fall 2011, Maybelline New York presented “Live From The Runway,” streaming real time fashion shows on YouTube. Just as all other YouTube videos, viewers can immediately comment and discuss with each other about whichever look they liked or disliked, taking the whole experience to another level. There is barely any difference with being in Lincoln Center physically.
If we are to put the whole runway streaming thing into an equation, this will probably be how it would look:
Fashion Shows Live Streams = In sync streaming of runway shows – transportation to New York (assuming you are in Bellevue, obviously) – typical 30 minutes wait before the show) – goodie bags – official invitation cards (which are a kind of collector’s item)
Though some people may regard a lot to be missing from the virtual streaming experience, we cannot deny that at the end of the day, within a click on the mouse, the above equation should still be able to achieve a positive end value.